Meeting Tough Times With 'Economic Gardening'

Local businesses are beginning to feel the pinch as the national economic downturn worsens, and the City of Columbia will be emphasizing its economic development services to support them in coming months.

The help is being marketed under the rubric "economic gardening"--a local economic development strategy that focuses on supporting local entrepreneurs and small businesses instead of attempting to attract new businesses from outside the area.

One element of this strategy is creating a business database that will help decision-makers analyze the local economy, identify particular strengths and challenges, and measure progress. As part of this information gathering, intern Meagan Reeves is making door-to-door visits to business and property owners along Main St. to complete an inventory of this key district.

The City provides matching funds (up to $3000) to encourage Main Street property owners to enhance their buildings' "curb appeal" with improvements such as painting, awnings, shutters, plaques, window boxes, step/sidewalk work, landscaping, planters and benches. This program has become increasingly popular and visible as it has helped transform buildings owned by realtor Tammy Mitchell Hines and financial advisor Brian Estes.

And Columbia's Community & Economic Development Department isn't just working to help Main Street, either. The City has also dedicated resources to assist local business owners wherever they may be located within the city limits. Available services include direct business assistance, where staff can work individually with a business to assess its needs and provide the best programs to establish or expand that business, and the Revolving Loan Fund. Targeted to assist with retention, growth and diversification of local businesses, this fund offers lower interest rates than conventional loans; when repaid, money is put back into the fund and made available for loans to other businesses.

Finally, City economic development staff has been working with members of the Monroe County Economic Development Council on a new program called "Think Monroe County First"--when launched in November, this program will help encourage local residents to keep purchasing locally.

Wall Street Bailout May Sink Main Street

The proposed $700 billion bank bailout may save the U.S. financial system, but it also will dry up federal aid to state and local governments, a national journalist warned local government officials Monday.

Cokie Roberts, speaking to about 3,600 representatives from local governments at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) conference in Richmond, warned that "the bad news is there will be no money for anything else." In Roberts' opinion, debt service on the proposed bailout package "will become the single biggest item in the federal budget."

Roberts has covered Congress, politics and public policy for nearly 20 years at ABC News. In addition to her responsibilities at ABC, Roberts serves as Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio, where she was the Congressional Correspondent for more than ten years. She has recieved numerous broadcasting awards, including three Emmys, and has been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.

Signs of the Times on Main Street?

Downtown signage is once again a focus for discussion by the City Council--this time, in connection with the Main Street Facade Program.

Members of the Civic Progress Committee have recommended that signage be included as one of the eligible uses for matching grants. Aldermen, building upon an earlier discussion about bringing more consistency and greater historic appeal to Main Street, want to exclude signage until a new graphics code can be adopted.

City economic development staff has begun researching models how other communities address signage in their business districts. Barracks Row Main Street in Washington, D.C. requires Historic Preservation review of signage but also provides pro bono design assistance, information on signage grants and low interest loans; the district also provides design guidelines that include "dos and don'ts" illustrated with photographs of examples. Ripon Main Street in Wisconsin also provides an extensive list of examples of appropriate signage illustrated with photographs; along with design guidelines and other preservation resources, this information is part of a renovation assistance program.

The Algoma Main Street program goes one step further--it awards grants for signage that is "appropriate and effective for the respective business, while at the same time adding to the character of the downtown as a whole."

Municipal Power: Is the Answer Blowin' in the Wind?

Following the opening of a new five milliwatt four-turbine wind farm in April, Rock Port (Missouri) has become the first municipality in the nation to get all its electricity from wind power. The $90 million Loess Hills Wind Farm was built by St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group and the John Deere Corporation.

When fully operational, the four Suzlon 1.25 MW S-64 wind turbines will have the capacity to generate 16 million kilowatt hours a year. Rock Port, a town of 1,395 in northwest Missouri, has historically needed no more than 13 million KwH annually for its electrical users. Missouri Joint Municipal Utilities (MJMU) will buy the excess power from the farm and will supply Rock Port's power needs when the wind turbines are not generating at capacity.

Carnegie President Urges More Citizens to Volunteer

Warning against the loss of the sense of community in modern American life, Vartan Gregorian of the Carnegie Corporation of New York this past week has issued a call for citizens to work more closely together for broad societal benefits.

Gregorian, co-chair of last week's ServiceNation Summit, is urging Americans to "join their personal aspirations for the future with their hopes for the collective progress of the nation." In an essay soon to be published in Time magazine, Gregorian argues that Americans have carried "individualism" to a new level of idolatry.

"While instantaneous communication and online technologies seem to connect us," he writes, "they also allow us to report on the minutiae of our daily lives and contribute to a cult of the individual. But in elevating the individual to center stage, we are quickly losing the sense of the larger community that draws us out of ourselves and our isolated circles and into the wider society."

Recognizing the strength and number of our voluntary associations as the expression of the collective American nature goes back to Alexis de Tocqueville. Today, Gregorian calls for ways to provide new and more varied opportunities and incentives for people to volunteer their time. He also identifies a need to decrease duplication through cooperative efforts and collaborative projects that allow for more effective targeting of available resources while freeing up financial and human resources for equally critical needs.

Calling commitment to volunteer effort "one of the greatest antidotes we have to pessimism about our collective future," Gregorian writes that "there is nothing cynical or shallow about offering to lend a hand...[i]ndeed, doing so is the opposite of so many of the ills that too often these days characterize our society."

Shipping Jobs Overseas--A Declining Trend?

Opponents of "big box"retail cite the shipping of manufacturing jobs overseas as one reason to fight the growth of such enterprises. The recent issue of Fortune suggests that a decline in this trend may be in the works.

The magazine's September issue reports that the "cost of shipping outsourced goods from China to U.S. customers has doubled in just two years thanks to high oil prices, and labor costs in China are rising sharply." These factors are leading to "talk of a reverse migration of manufacturing from China to the U.S., [which] has been buzzing across union halls and factory floors, corporate boardrooms and Wall Street."

Fortune profiles Wisconsin-based Regal Ware Inc., a 500-employee maker of high-end cookware which discovered that manufacturing abroad has another drawback--"it isn't nearly as efficient as they had hoped." As part of a recent review of its manufacturing processes, Regal Ware managers decided they could solve inventory woes and serve customers better by abandoning a large portion of their ten-year expansion into China." After Regal Ware moved its production back to the U.S., CEO Jeffrey Reigle claims that the company experienced a more flexible supply chain and heightened efficiency.

Though Fortune opines that "plenty of manufacturers will continue looking for ever cheaper places to produce," Regal Ware's experience "suggests that companies need to think beyond simply chasing the lowest cost supplier."

Pouring Money Into a Hole in the Ground

Yesterday, members of the Columbia Rotary Club and guests toured the Rock City complex under development beneath the limestone bluffs in Valmeyer. Facility developer Joe Koppeis, the owner of Columbia's Market Place supermarket and Admiral Parkway Inc., conducted the tour. Attendees agreed that this is one project where the phrase "pouring money into a hole in the ground" is accurately descriptive rather than pejorative.

Koppeis' project is huge, one of the largest enterprises ever undertaken on this side of the Mississippi, yet it has progressed largely out of mind because it is out of sight. Rock City's cave network--carved out of the bluffs using a former Monroe County lime quarry as the starting point--has the potential to expand to nearly 6 million square feet. The complex already houses the Mid America Refrigerated Warehouse, a 200,000 square-foot underground frozen food warehouse and office. The space in this portion of the complex is cooled in separate chambered rooms to range from 35 degrees above to 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Mid America stores and ships products for Schwan’s, Nestle, Ralston, Prairie Farms, Kraft, the US Department of Agriculture, and Wal-Mart--just to name a few.

The latest and most visible addition to the complex is the $52-million project relocating the National Archives from their existing South St. Louis facility. The federal agency has leased almost 400,000 square feet for records storage, adjunct office space, furnishings and equipment. This space, when completed, will enclose thousands of metal shelves containing hundreds of thousands of boxes holding paper records--a file collection reminiscent of the closing scene in the X-Files movie.